Ladies and Gentlemen, We Have Parity - The Colonel

Posted to Ballhype on 19 April

That's right - the goal of the 2005 CBA is coming to fruition. There is parity in the NHL playoffs. Specifically:

1. For the first time since the Lockout, EVERY series split the first two games. Last season, only the Carolina @ New Jersey series did so. The previous 'record' was in 2007 where five series split the opening pair, followed by 2006 with four and 2008 with three.

2. Number one above means no 1st round sweeps. If you remember last year, Round 1 had three of them where there had only ben one per post-season (since the Lockout) before.

3. On average, it has taken 3.15 goals to win a game. USUALLY, when you go into the playoffs, less goals are scores because teams tighten up their defense. But you have Washington/Montreal at the top end requiring an average of 4.5 goals to secure a 'W' and Chicago/Nashville - the more traditional flavor of playoff hockey - needing 1.5 goals at the bottom.

4. And as of games completed Sunday night, we have had 7-of-20 games (35%) go into OT. Mercifully for the networks, no OT has gone longer than 13:19 into the first OT period (MTL over WSH in Game 1). But it means 35% of 'Ls' could have gone either way. THAT is great drama for we, the fans of the coolest game on the planet.

Where is your handy reference for all things NHL playoffs? Go to ongoalanalysis.com for the latest hot shot picture of the night (plus thumbnails from every game), Livescore (with the alert feature so you know when someone nets one while you are watching another game) and final scores, two days' upcoming schedules, the game-by-game results and series' count, and a link under the scores and schedules to take you to the top three players in terms of scoring forwards, scoring defensemen, PIM leaders and goalies for each Conference.

Which teams are ripe to move on to the next round? Can we even tell right now? Find out by listening in to On Goal Analysis' JabberHockey show on Tuesday night, 20 April, at 11pm EST.